I am of that generation who say the Wicker Man for the first time in it's original cinematic release and later through the DVD release of the longer version.I had to endure the Nicholas Cage Remake, but I have say that compared to that the Wicker Tree is utter crap. There is no other word.It fails in every way to capture the essence of the original, only the cameo appearance of Christopher Lee stands out.Where is that use of folk music, and all those references to Fraser's Golden Bough which I saw in the original? Instead it makes the Simpsons look like the better version, all that reference to "Nuada" is an absolute insult.Yes it does have a few plot twists which I will not mention for spoilers, but everything else about it is wrong. The acting is wooden, the mise en scene is totally lacking in atmosphere, and I have to say that Beam strikes me as some kind of Billy Connolly as John Brown parody, I want to burn my eyes out.

I have never believed for a second that the 1973 film THE WICKER MAN is any type of cinematic masterpiece as some defenders claim . It suffers from a painfully ridiculous plot hole in its central premise . That said at least it has a plot . This 2011 " spiritual sequel " ( Whatever that can be defined as ) to the 1973 original doesn't have a plot " You sure Theo ? I mean it seems stupid making a film and filling it with nothing happening " Well who said anything has to happen in a film ? Well things do happen but they rarely make any sense . Let's also be brutally realistic and point out that films are simply made to make a profit for the company producing it and if Robin Hardy director of the original film says " Hey guys I've just made a sequel to my 1973 masterwork and Christopher Lee returns in it " you can guarantee some naïve fans are going to rush to the cinema to watch it only to realise their mistake after they've paid their money at the box office What makes this film a fairly dreadful experience is the tone . A young Christian couple travel to Scotland to spread the word of the Lord . See what happens when you listen to Pat Robertson ? So they arrive in Scotland and find that when people have sex subtitles suddenly appear out of nowhere as do pagans and cannibals and jokes that fall as flat as a pancake . If you think a Scotsman in a kilt having his genitals damaged is the strong foundation of a running joke you might find this film amusing in some small way . I didn't The visuals are also ill though out . Most of the look of the film resembles one of this television productions that ITV broadcast that again jars with the tone of what happens , much of which is crass and unpleasant . None of this is helped by the cast , many of who give the impression they're all appearing in entirely separate films . The worst performance comes from the delightfully named Britannia Nicol who is supposed to carry but would have difficulty in carrying a cup of coffee in to my living room . It's no surprise that she was never seen after this film . In fact neither was this film seen again after it made its limited release to the cinemas

I have watched all of Foyle's War, and I have never seen Honeysuckle Weeks as I have here. Unlike Brittania Nicol who played Beth Boothby, she did not use a body double for her scenes.This was supposedly a remake of The Wicker Man and, while it was good, it certainly can't come up to the standards of either version, not the 1973 version with Edward Woodward, or the 2006 version with Nickolas Cage and Christa Campbell.There are a lot of sexual innuendos, as well as a very funny sex scene.Unfortunately, what is going to happen here is very obvious, and there is no element of surprise as there was in the previous films.

The worst thing about The Wicker Tree is that it's not even the worst attempt at exploiting the original horror classic. The remake of The Wicker Man starring Nicholas Cage is at least so awesomely point-and-laugh terrible that you can enjoy mocking it. This thing is merely another lame horror flick to throw on the ever-growing pile. Robin Hardy turns in a thoroughly pedestrian job as a director but came up with a stupid, shallow and simplistic script that works best as an unintentional love letter to Anthony Shaffer, writer of the first film. I hate to put it this way but The Wicker Tree looks, sounds and feels like the work of an old man who is well past his creative prime and no one had the decency to tell him. If this move had failed spectacularly, you could credit Hardy with perhaps trying to be bold and imaginative. As it is, it's hard to view this as anything more that a much delayed cash grab.Beth Boothby (Brittania Nicol) is a Christian country singer who, along with her cowboy fiancée Steve (Henry Garrett), travels from Texas to Scotland as a missionary to revive the faith of a small village. Let me stop right here and point something out because I think it gets at the heart of what's wrong with this film. Hardy was bright enough to realize that England has become such a religiously neutered society that he would have to go far afield to find representatives of Christianity to square off against the forces of paganism. However, he didn't bother to think about how that kind of cultural shift would affect anything else. Paganism in a post-Christian 21st century should not be at all the same thing as during the 1970s when church-going was still part of the established order of life in the UK.Let me draw an analogy. Organized crime still exists in America but is, by all accounts, a shell of what is once was. If you made a movie about the Mafia today which didn't acknowledge that reality, that portrayed the Mob as the same sort of pervasive and powerful force it was in the 70s or during Prohibition, you'd end up with a silly and contrived bit of nonsense. Tony Soprano could not be Michael Corleone. Yet, other than bringing in Yanks as his designated Christian victims, Hardy didn't put any thought at all into how the passing of time and cultural and economic changes would require re-imagining the Wicker Man story.The whole of The Wicker Tree is a constant reminder that Hardy didn't think things through when he wrote this screenplay. I mean, the original was set on an island that was physically cut off from civilization. That's the sort of detail that helps the viewer suspend disbelief and accept a pagan cult surviving in secrecy. The Wicker Tree not only takes place on the mainland, it's set in a village near a nuclear power plant. There's nothing isolated or secluded about such a location that would make avoiding public scrutiny easy. And while the original Wicker Man left open the question of what happens after the human sacrifice of a police officer and even hints that things aren't going to turn out well for the murderous cult, this flick ends with an epilogue that expects us to believe that not only can a minor celebrity vanish from a Scottish village with no one caring but that the gruesome death of the founder and leader of the cult would have absolutely no effect on anything. Oh, and it expects you to believe that a human being exposed to flame burns like gas-soaked tissue paper.Anyway, Beth and Steve arrive in Scotland. The pagan villagers want to kill them. They do. The end. Believe me, I put as much thought into those four sentences and Hardy did with this script.Topping it all is that while the original seemed like its pagan cult was at least based on some real and coherent religion, The evil faith in The Wicker Tree appears to be nothing more than horror movie tripe that Hardy just pulled out of his butt. I'm no expert and maybe it is drawn from historical truth, but it's presented so poorly and idiotically that it comes off like made up crap.Now, Honeysuckle Weeks does take her top off and there a good bit of nudity at the end but it is mostly of the real world nudist variety where you kind of wish the folks had kept their clothes on. There isn't anything that's even inadvertently worth seeing here. Watch the original. Watch the remake and turn its awfulness into a drinking game with your friends. Don't waste your time on The Wicker Tree.